Extended Magazine Tubes on a 500

[The Pistoleer]

I'm not much of a shotgunner but won a 500 a while back.  I thought it would make a good home defence gun.  Do they make extended magazines for Mossbergs?

Pete

[JPShelton]

It'll likely make a dandy home defense gun just as it is.  It just won't look as "tactcti-cool" as it would with an extended mag, "breeching choke tube" with teeth on the end, and a plethora of extra crapola affixed all over it.

I was a peace officer in metropolitan Los Angeles County, California and we used shotguns with regular five round magazines.  The tube mags on pump guns are easy enough to stoke up on the fly if your home gets invaded by zombies and the odds that you'll need more than one or two well-placed shots to forever end the treat posed by a typical home intruder are actually pretty slim.

In a situation where I have to move the gun fast, I'd rather have something fast enough to get the drop on a little, fast moving target like a clay pigeon or a dove than a muzzle heavy piece that might look cool but be be slow to move around.

In my view, an extended magazine would seem to add cumbersomeness that I don't need in the close confines of my home in excange for ammo capacity that I also don't really need.  I'd rather have the dynamic handling in an HD situation than round count.

Now, in law enforcement, where you might be barging in to serve a warrant in a crack house filled with armed gangbangers, a couple of extra rounds to empty might be benificial.  Been there, done that, but even in that kind of scenario, which has little to do with HD, I'd still rather have dynamic handling in a shotgun.  I didn't go into those crack house alone.  I went in with other gun totin' good guys, too, so I didn't have to neutralize every threat on my own.  I had plenty of help to spread the workload, so to speak.

I did a lot of building searches, felony traffic stops, and such during my law enforcement career and never really found myself wishing that my issued Remington 870 Police Magnum carried 8 rounds instead of 5.  If I didn't feel the need being 10-8 in L.A. County, there is no reason for me to feel it now at home in comfortable retirement.

If I felt that I DID need more rounds than my shotgun carried on board during my tenure in L.E., well, that is what we had Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine guns for!

Your home is not likely to be the target rich environment that a crack house or battlefield is.

YMMV, and all of that...........

JP

[The Pistoleer]

JP, thanks for the reply.  I must say that I agree with you.  I was mostly curious as to why I never see extended tubes for the 500 on Gun Broker but do for nearly every other gun.

Pete

[JPShelton]

There is a difference in the magazine tubes of M-500s and Remington 870s that might explain why do don't see long mag tubes for the former but do for the latter. 

On an 870, the barrel is retained by a threaded cap that screws over the end of the mag tube.  The tube is basically the same diameter at each end.  On older 870s like the antiques that we used on the P.D. I worked for, you could thread off that mag tube end cap, remove the mag spring, and probably some other little do-dad that I don't recall, and put a longer mag spring in and replace the original mag end cap with tube that was desgined to still retain the barrel and increase mag capacity at the same time.  I couldn't use this extended tube on my 870 Express, becuase it has a different mag spring retainer than the police magnum 870s I used on duty.

The M-500 mag tube is "closed" on the muzzle end with a small threaded hole in it that the barrel retention screw screws in to, so you can't add an extension to the tube like you can on some 870s as noted above.

The 500 mag tube is simply threaded into the receiver.  It is easily removed from the receiver with a strap wrench one you get the barrel and fore-end off.  In theroy, you could screw in a longer tube easily enough after removing the old one.

But then, if you did that, how would you re-attach the barrel?

The long winded point of all of this is that the M-870 design simply lends itself to high capacity modification while the M-500 does not.

-JP

[The Pistoleer]

JP, that makes sence.  I bought a Blackhawk Specops stock for the 500 but haven't installed it yet.  It is suppose tame the recoil somewhat.

Pete

[bubba.50]

mossberg makes a defender model that has a longer tube and holds 7 or 8 shells. to put one on your gun you would have to replace the whole tube and use a defender barrel which has the mounting lug farther out on the barrel which is all mossberg does. the action is unchanged. would probably be cheaper, not to mention easier to buy a defender. my opinion and you're welcome to it, bubba.

[zoner]

you don't need an extended mag on a 500 for home defense. Mine holds six(five in the tube) and if that doesn't get me out of trouble two more ain't gonna help much. Fact is most home defense situations are over with one or two rounds fired.....not extended firefights